The old city itself shows scarcely a trace of the many historic dramas of which it has been the scene,--the lowering tragedy of the Vaudois time,--the bright, gay comedy of good king Rene's Court,--the shorter scenes of Charles V's occupation,--the Parliament's struggle with Richelieu and Mazarin,--the day of the fiery Mirabeau,--the grim melodrama of the Revolution,--all have passed, and time has destroyed their monuments almost as completely as the Saracens destroyed those of the earlier Roman days. Only a few, unformed fragments of the great Temple of Apollo remain in the walls of Saint-Sauveur. The earliest Cathedral, Sainte-Marie-de-la-Seds, has entirely disappeared, the old thermal springs are enclosed by modern buildings, and only the statue of "the good King Rene" and the Church of the Knights of Malta give to Aix a faint atmosphere of its past distinction. Who would dream that here were the homes of the elegant and lettered courtiers of King Rene's brilliant capital, who would think that this town was the earliest Roman settlement in Gaul, the Aquae Sextiae of Baths, Temples, Theatres, and great wealth? Aix is a stately town, a provincial capital which Balzac might well have described--with old, quiet streets that are a little dreary, with a fine avenue shaded by great trees in whose shadows a few fountains trickle, with lines of little stages that come each day from the country,--a city whose life is as far in spirit from the near-by modernity of Marseilles as it is from that of Paris, as quaintly and delightfully provincial as that other little Provencal city, the Tarascon of King Rene and of Tartarin. Languedoc. I. CATHEDRALS OF THE CITIES. [Sidenote: Nimes.] Entering Languedoc from the valley of the Rhone, the Cathedral-lover is doomed to disappointment in the city of Nimes. All that intense, intra-mural life of the Middle Ages seems to have passed this city by, and its traces, which he is so eager to find, prove to be neither notable nor beautiful. [Illustration: "AN AMPHITHEATRE WHICH RIVALS THE ART OF THE COLISEUM."--NIMES.]